Come On And Stick With Me Baby
by Miss Meggie
Summary: When the Monolith returns Jemma to earth the team is required to take help from the one person they hate the most. Jemma's husband, Grant Ward.


AN: own nothing. I hope you enjoy. Thanks ever so much to my Betas PixiesnReedus and Stafishdancer. Story title taken from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' song Stick With me.

The rock spits her out on a random Thursday. Fitz is away, working yet another angle, still refusing to give up even though they determined the monolith is literal death.

Miracle of miracles though, it just lets her go. The thing makes a heart-stoppingly horrendous shriek, like metal hitting metal at high velocity. The sound draws Bobbi's attention, and in seconds it gives the biochemist up and returns to solid form. Bobbi finds Jemma cowering in the corner of the monolith's protective box. She's dirty and bleeding, covered in gray dust and mud but - most importantly - she is alive.

She's alive! Bobbi shoots her way through the metal door and rushes into the monolith's containment room. Snatching away the caution tape, she yanks the door open and pulls Jemma from the box. The woman doesn't stand; she crumples to the floor like a lifeless rag doll.

Bobbi hurriedly closes the box, encasing the huge, black yet suddenly unmoving instrument of death and misery.

Jemma looks up at her with huge terrified eyes. "Who are you? Where's Leo? Where's my husband? Where's Grant?"

The hysterical tenor of Jemma's questions break Bobbi's heart, but the mention of Ward sends ice flowing through her limbs.

_/-/-

"I had to sedate her in order to perform the tests. Sir, she was so skittish, there was no other option." Bobbi informs him.

Coulson nods an affirmative. "What'd you find?"

"Various bodily injuries and obvious exhaustion. That's not what has me worried though, watch this." Bobbi turns to Daisy. "Wake her, Daisy. Remember to keep her calm and see if she recognizes anything."

They watch somberly as Jemma jerks awake. Daisy gently presses her hands to Jemma's shoulders to keep the woman from jumping out of the chair as well as her skin. "Simmons, I promise I'm your friend and I'm going to help you. I swear we just need to see a few things first. Tell me if you have any memories attached to these objects or people okay?" Daisy uses the gentle but confident tone she has adopted when handling fellow scared inhumans.

"Watch the image of her brain," Bobbi says, starting the slide show. She points to the frontal lobe of the brain it lights up just a bit with each passing image. "The lit up part controls cognition and recognition. This part here?" She points to a much dimmer section, a part of the brain clearly making little to no effort. "This controls memory."

"So, what? She knows what everything is just has no memory of it?" Coulson inquires.

"Yes, she has global amnesia. But here's the kicker."

Bobbi flashes a photo up on the screen: a picture of Grant Ward smiling down at Jemma as she explained something or other. It was a candid Bobbi had found in Jemma's quarters.

"Look at her brain, that part is the hypothalamus. The seat of love and comfort in the brain, and it's lit up like Times Square and the temporal area barely glimmers. She can't remember anything but she knows she loves him. It's the same with Fitz and her parents, but to a lesser degree."

"What are you trying to say, Bobbi?" Coulson asks.

"She's saying, if we hope to help Jemma regain anything, Ward's the key." Fitz says, causing both to start. Neither had felt his presence.

"She's physically fine?" Fitz turns to Bobbi.

"Weak, tired, and a little banged up, but yes, fine."

"Then I'm going to help her get settled."

-/-/-/-

"No! If he comes here, I will kill him." Hunter shouts.

"No. You won't. " Coulson orders calmly, though the words were firm as stone. "We do not spill blood for the sake of it. We are not him."

"I know the monolith is a black hole. From what I can tell, it transported her elsewhere, but I've no clue if the amnesia was caused by the unknown environment or emotional trauma. I agree with Fitz: the only way I'm going to get into her head is through Ward," Bobbi counters.

"You guys are a team, you can't do it alone? Come on now, Turbo," Mack injects. He looks at Fitz, who has been silent up to this point

"We haven't been a team for a long while now. And just as I've accepted I will always love her, I've had to accept that she will always love Ward more, until her dying day. No matter how deep she buries it down. The only part of her brain that recognizes anything is the hypothalamus. We use the love as conduit to the other stuff. For Jemma to recover any of it, we're going to need the love of her life," Fitz finishes.

"Where are you going?" Coulson shouts to his quickly-retreating back.

"Ages ago, Jemma got all up in arms because Ward put trackers in their wedding bands. I'm going to ping it and hope like hell he's still wearing his."

"And you've just now thought to mention this?" Coulson follows him, a little irritated by Fitz's insubordination.

Fitz turns back with a frustrated growl.

"Jemma is - was - very sensitive about their marriage after Hydra. I didn't want to rip open any emotional scars. Before that, their marriage was very private and sacred. Not my purview." Fitz shrugs. "Sanction me if you want, but I said I'd get Jemma back and I meant it. "

-/-/-/-

Grant is conducting a recruitment seminar for his new Hydra faction when Fitz strolls in, easy as you please.

Before he can even think to fight his way out from whatever SHIELD has surrounding him, Fitz begins speaking. "An ancient alien monolith engulfed your wife, took her to another planet, wiped her memory and ejected her like she was yesterday's rubbish."

Grant blinks dumbly for a moment, assimilating the information. "And it's my problem how? She tried to kill me."

Fitz points to the specialist's ring finger. "You still love her, or am I mistaken? Last I checked it was bad form for an operative to wear anything linking him to someone who was not mission critical. It marks a weakness, correct? Am I rightly assuming Jemma is yours?" And, just like that, Fitz exposes his deepest secret.

He stands stocks still. "Is she okay?"

Fitz is already moving out of the semi-dilapidated warehouse, his back to Grant. The shorter man whirls around. "No! Damn it, Grant, the thing wiped her entire brain. She's not okay. Are you coming or not?"

"Wiped her... Oh God, where is she?" He runs to catch up with Fitz, mindless of all the work and people he's leaving behind. Within minutes, he and Fitz are outside.

He watches Fitz drop a disc that explodes and then calls down a med pod in the middle of the courtyard. Mack steps from it and forces him bodily into the wall of the building. Having the element of surprise, he disarms Grant and tosses him into the pod. It shuts lifts him off the ground.

Oh God, he'd done this to his girl, only in the reverse. It's not the first time he has felt guilt over it. It is, however, the first time he's been able to put it into physical context. The feeling that bubbles up is supremely unnerving. He vows to apologize to her profusely and in many, many ways at the first opportunity.

-/-/-

They brief him quickly. Morse and Hunter are conspicuously absent.

"As I understand it, the monolith is meant for inhumans. You think it's meant to strip them of their powers and memory, leaving them with only the ability to love… alone on a desolate planet. That's grim, even by Hydra standards," Grant notes after they've finished.

"About the size of it," Coulson replies.

"My wife is undoubtedly human; I am rather well-acquainted with her form." Fitz's look of disgust amuses Grant.

"It should have either killed her flat out or left her alone, barring some other interference. Right?" He asks for clarification when no one speaks, crossing his arms and eyeing Fitz.

"Right..." Fitz agrees warily.

Grant growls without meaning to and turns to grip the windows sill. "John fucking Garrett," he mutters. He really wants to hit something, and hard.

"What?" He can hear Coulson smugness from clear across the room.

His anger suddenly propels him toward the other man. "Stop smirking or I swear on her life, Director Coulson, I'm going to rip off your cute little robot hand and beat you with it," he threatens, not at all in jest.

And the Mack's playing bouncer again. Isn't that just peachy. "I think John went behind my back and made Jemma compliant. Her altered brain chemistry would've triggered the monolith's response. Now, I want to see to the reason you dragged me here. Where is she?" He's shouting now, entirely fed up. He needs to see her and it needs to happen now.

"We've got her in a containment cell. I'll show you," Fitz offers.

They really should have blindfolded him. He's got the layout additions to the playground mapped out on the singular walk.

Jemma's got fancier digs than he did in Vault D, but it still pisses him off to see her caged. It's like seeing a butterfly fly trapped in a mason jar. It's just wrong.

He watches her pace through the cut glass square in the cell door. He taps on the pane. She looks up immediately and stops pacing.

"Hey, Baby, rough day?" She looks at him as though she wants to launch herself at him. God, he's missed that look. It doesn't matter that he can't have her back, maybe it never had.

He opens his side of the door's airlock box. "Go ahead, I'm not afraid." He says. He places his hand in the airlock, palm up.

And he waits.

"What're you doing?" Skye accuses more than asks. He'd been so focused on Jemma he'd not noticed her presence.

"Letting her make the first move, for old times' sake." He hears Skye sigh.

"When was the last time one of you touched her, just to touch her? Being deprived of simple human contact is a torture of its own kind," he said without taking his eyes off Jemma's hand on the airlock handle.

"I know you. Grant. Though I don't remember you.I don't remember me. It's disconcerting," she says with her brow furrowed in deep concern. The airlock opens.

"I remember you, and you love me. Seems like as good a place as any to start." He gives her a smile he knows from practice is reassuring.

Her palm slides over his, then her fingertip dances across his lifeline and the curve of his wedding band. Suddenly, he finds himself twisted in bedsheets and her hands journeying smoothly over his every scar, freckle, and muscle. Her ring shining in the Alaskan sun that bleeds through the curtains.

"Do you love me in return Grant?" she asks, knocking him from his reverie.

"Very much, despite it all." He answers lowly as though he's remaking a vow.

Skye scoffs at them and he'd be pissed but doesn't have time for it as Jemma catches his fingers with hers.

"Well you're exposed now; you were going to get your own cell but now the two of you can share," Skye snarks.

"I'd like that, why was he getting a cell?" Jemma pulls at her lower lip with her teeth.

"Stupid reasons that don't matter, baby."

-/-/-

The containment cell is almost as big as their first apartment. It's set up in a two-room studio style; the king-sized bed, kitchenette and living area are all in one place. The tiny shower and toilet are in a separate, camera-free room.

There is a huge window-like picture similar to the one's in Providence Base, though light and holographic movement differ in this one to help keep track of the time. Grant watches the sunset over a snowy mountain range while Jemma showers.

She comes out wrapped in a towel. "Forgot my clothes."

She hurriedly gathers them up and turns back for the bathroom. That's when he notices the blackest bruise he's ever seen creeping up the side of her body.

"Raise your arm!" he orders, then softens. He's not angry with her. They'd lied to him; she's very far from fine. He tries for a gentler tone. "May I see your injuries, please?

She raises her arm. The bruise begins under her arm and disappears beneath the towel. Before he can stop himself he's reaching for her hand and dragging her toward the shower. "Can I?" he gestures to the towel and she drops it unceremoniously to the floor. The bruise covers her side, armpit to hip.

"Baby…" he whispers in sympathy.

"I'm fine, really. It only hurts when I breathe too deeply," she returns, using the soothing tone she once employed when he caught her exploring unsafe science and she didn't want him to worry.

He scoffs. "Your ribs are broken, Jemma." He walks around her in a slow circle. She's covered in cuts, scrapes and bruises. "I'm going to murder whoever did this."

"I can't remember what did this to me," Jemma points out, arms curled into her chest protectively.

He bends and retrieves her towel. "I'll find out, and they'll die painfully."

He wraps her up again, touching her as little as possible because, well, the feel of her skin had always been a thing for him and she can't remember any of their things. It's best to maintain distance for as long as he can hold out or until she invites his touch.

She nods. He goes to leave her to dress.

"Stay? I think I've spent a good deal of time alone, I don't want to be alone again." Because there's a plea for closeness in her eyes, he relents.

"In that case…I'll be right back, just grabbing you something." When he returns, he hands her a pair of panties and her very favorite t-shirt of his. He kept it in his go bag. For reasons.

"Now, neither of is going to be alone for a long time, it would seem, but scent is the strongest known link to memory, maybe it can unlock something. And if not, you always said this made you feel safe." He nods to the pristinely folded shirt in her hands.

"Your shirt made me feel safe?" she looks at him skeptically.

"So you said," he agrees, fighting a grin.

She hummed a non-committal noise, slipping the plain blue shirt over her head, and jamming her arms through the corresponding holes.

The shirt still looks better on her than it ever had on him.

He'd started wearing it again because at some point the garment had stopped belonging to him and had become completely hers. It'd made him feel normal to wear something that had touched her skin last.

The faded blue shirt looks like it's finally found home again as it hits her thighs.

"It's so soft, you don't look soft," she says in genuine surprise.

He smiles at her; he just can't fight the pull between them. "You never have liked washing it."

He watches with a modicum of sadness as she puts the underwear on but doesn't voice his despair.

When they return to the main room a night sky lit up by the Aurora Borealis fills the picture window. "Did you pick this or did Fitz?" he asks.

She shrugs a little. "I did, it felt comforting and maybe a little other-worldly. Why? Should I remember something?"

"Nah, baby. It's fine, you're fine."

"Why do I feel like the way you say the word fine is akin to a lie?"

Grant chuckles despite himself. "Because you're a smart, intuitive woman."

He looks over at her and she's standing on the side of the bed that belongs to her. No memory and yet she can still pick out her side.

Someone had placed the makings for a single person cot at the foot of the bed. It was likely Fitz, trying to help Jemma maintain boundaries she can't remember or put in place. He shrugs. He was going to sleep in the floor beside her anyway. The cot might be a little more comfortable than the cold tile. If or when those boundaries moved, he wanted all of Jem's marbles accounted for and in place. He wants Jemma, he always would, but he wants the her that is aware of his flaws and darkness, that wants _him_ in return. It was an all or nothing situation.

She's watching him with curious eyes as he makes up the cot. "What, Jem?"

She gestures at the huge bed. "Wouldn't you rather just sleep with me? I mean beside me, though if it leads to…" She trails off, blushing. He'd forgotten how fucking happy she makes him.

The blush is darkening at some perceived sort of rejection he needs to correct, quickly. "In a perfect world, hell yeah! Our world hasn't been perfect in a long time. You remember me and still love me? If still want me? Trust me, that's exactly where we'll end up but until then, baby steps, alright?"

He watches her pull back the covers.

"Baby steps," she nods. Climbing into bed she asks, "Why's that picture important to us?"

He strips out of his clothes and flops back on his cot. "We went to Alaska on our honeymoon just so you could see those lights. It was a gift from John."

"John?"

"Just someone I believed in once," he whispers at the ceiling.

"And now?"

"If he wasn't already dead, I'd kill him. Try to sleep, baby."

A few hours later, as he's tossing and turning on the deceptively uncomfortable cot, he hears Jemma making sounds of distress. He gets up before her bad dream turns to a night terror. He flips on the bathroom light and cracks the door to reassure her, as the picture window is now pitch black. He moves to the bed and sits down, nudges her gently. She flies into wakefulness with a shout in automatic defense mode. She has a sharp stick pointed at his jugular.

He pitches his voice softly and calmly. "Baby, you're safe, you are home." He brushes her hair out of her face; the usually silky strands are sweat-dampened.

"It was after me. It was hungry and wild." Her breath hitches.

"What was after you, Jemma?"

"I'm not sure if it was a man or some kind of creature. It just wanted me, it wanted me to die."

As he disarms her gently, he realizes the stick is not, in fact, a stick. It's a bone, sharpened to lethal yet rudimentary precision. What the hell had she seen? Done?

He holds her until the shaking stops and she's dozing in his arms. He eases her back on to the mattress and moves to return to his cot. Her sudden grip on his wrist is surprisingly strong. "Stay? Please?" And that's the second time she's asked him that. He always was hard pressed to deny her anything she wanted.

"Baby I-"

"Please? What harm could come from holding me?"

He climbs into the bed without breaking her grip on his wrist. It's complicated, but he gets it done and is curling around her in no time at all. Her ribs give her trouble and she wiggles until she's lying practically on top of him.

He doesn't mind.

"The harm is I won't want to let you go," he confesses into the silence.

"I don't want to be free, not from you."

He tangles a hand in her hair. "We'll see about that when you're brain gets detangled. I love you. Try to rest, Jem."

"I love you too, Grant. That much I do know."

-/-

Watching Jemma cast about for any little piece of her memory is painful for everyone and, as hard as Morse tries, she's not Jemma's caliber of scientist. Morse and Fitz come daily to check Jemma's memory and vitals.

Grant leans on the little bar diving kitchen and living space.

"I know a way to undo some of the compliance training," he says.

"Shut up!" Morse barks at him. "Before I tell her- "

"Don't!" Fitz snaps while temporarily blinding Jemma with a penlight. "She needs to come to her memories on her own."

"Tell me what? Do the two of you have history? Did you sleep together?" Jemma inquires, twisting to look at him.

Morse looks like she might be physically ill. It makes Grant happy, even more so when her ire raises further at his uproarious laughter.

"No sweetheart, we just clash. Wanna hear my idea or not, Morse? Because clearly what you're doing works so well." He can't help the sharp sarcasm that flies from his mouth.

Fitz grits his teeth. "What is it?"

"I need to look at her blood work, see how much of the chemical that lowers inhibition and makes you pliable to suggestion is present to determine when she was last forced into compliance. Then, we give her the Hydra-specialized memory recovery serum. I did it for Kara and it only worked half way. The rest was on Kara."

Morse flinches at the sound of Kara's name. "Who is Kara?" Jemma asks, speculation ripe in her tone.

"An ex-girlfriend."

"Okay." Jemma's tone suggests she is not okay; she has feelings about his relationship with Kara even if she can't recall her. He will need to tread carefully.

"The drug is meant to rebuild your neural path ways. It'll make you sick and will be immensely painful," he explains, speaking solely to Jemma.

"I'll do it. I want my mind back."

"Figured as much, I'll be there the whole time, Jem."

-/-/-

He gives the SOP for the treatment: three injections over a week. After the first dose, Jemma complains of a minor headache within six hours. Within twenty-four, she recalls something just before breakfast.

"We met on a blind date."

He stops scrambling eggs. "Yes, we did."

"You wore that incredibly ugly tie…" she laughs and it is the best thing he's heard in months.

"It wasn't."

"It was chartreuse." She accuses pointing at him with the knife she's using to butter the toast.

"I lost a bet."

"If that's your excuse…"

-/-

The second dose causes a migraine. He finds her lying in the bed, the main room darkened. "Am I supposed to be having tinnitus episodes? Why's it so bloody hot?" she whines.

He stares at her blankly.

"Tinnitus is a big word for your ears ringing," she explains.

The air conditioning kicks on. "Thank you, God, or whoever that was," she mutters into the arm she has thrown over her eyes.

"Set to Arctic levels, just for you, Jem," Fitz says over the intercom.

"I love you, now shut up."

Grant snorts back a laugh at her snappish retort. He lies on the bed next to her and gingerly pulls her to him, careful not to jostle her still-healing ribs.

"Hey, Darling," Jemma whispers tiredly.

"Hm."

"My brain, it's stuck on this one memory but I've no context for it and it is driving me mad because it makes no sense. Unless we've a child no one has mentioned."

He kissed her temple. "You'd have remembered a kid, Jem. We don't have one. What's the memory?"

"You and a little girl dancing, and she's standing on the tops of your feet. She's tiny, maybe four years old. It's a dressy occasion, I just… and then there's nothing."

"That was likely our wedding day. Your cousin Leia was, and still is, obsessed with you. She had to do everything you did, including first dances."

She shrugs. "I didn't mind all."

"Not really, no." He agrees.

"My head is killing me but the shit is working, so thank you."

"Just glad I could help, though the pain involved is unfortunate."

-/-/-

The third cycle of drugs causes a cluster migraine that leaves her screaming in pain and vomiting so profusely she dehydrates herself and has to be hooked to IV fluids to replenish. It's the longest and possibly worst four days of his life (including his time in a Russian gulag).

She's mostly dry heaving and trembling, now. "Wanna take a bath, babe?" he offers.

"Please."

He carries her to the bathroom and sits her on the toilet seat. He rids her of her sweaty clothes, the pungent smell of puke clinging to them. He hands her a toothbrush already pasted and starts the water.

"Cool water please, sweetheart?" The words distort as she brushes her teeth, and it makes him smile.

"I've done this before you know, fixed you a bath?"

"How often? "She stands on wobbly legs to spit in the sink and rinse her mouth.

"Once every couple of months I guess. When you get in one of your science world grooves, it's the only way to truly relax you. Though shower sex works in a pinch."

Her blush makes him smile. "Join me? The sex is merely optional."

She's flirting with him and he kinda loves it.

"You sure it's not the migraine talking?" he asks while lifting her into the water.

"You mean near aneurysm. Yes, I wouldn't have extended the invitation if I wasn't."

When he starts getting naked she watches him strip down with hungry, interested eyes.

It feels…nice.

-/-/-

She's leaned back against his chest, her head resting on his shoulder. "Were we good together? Intimately speaking?"

"Were…"

"I can tell, by the way you touch me, that it has been some time. There's desperation in it. I assume we were in quite the tiff before the incident, it would explain why my brain latched on to you… I must miss you. Leo represents the knowledge I've yet to access. My parents signify comfort, and you… well you're safety, and desire, you're home." As she speaks, she plays with his hands, drawing absent-minded shapes on his palm, slip sliding her fingers through the water.

He can't give it any of his attention because she claims every thought in his head for herself, as if she is stamping him as her property. "Jemma, when it all comes back to you please, remember this moment and what I'm about to say."

"Um hmm." She's starting to drift toward sleep, relaxed by the absence of pain.

"I loved you through it all. No matter what. Most of the time, being with you was my only salvation."

"Oh, you're good," she smiles. "I will remember, it's not often a girl's told she's salvation."

-/-/-/-

She's trying to concentrate and not pay any mind to what's going on behind her. She's trying to ignore it but the clang –settle- clang of the metal bar belonging to the salmon ladder Grant has installed is almost as distracting as Grant himself. He's wearing nothing but delightfully-clingy basketball shorts.

She gives up on the whole idea of trying to form scientific thought and enjoys what he has put on display.

"I can feel you looking Jemma," he says conversationally. He's not even winded while pulling to the top rung.

"You mean this isn't meant to improve my observations skills? Clearly you have an excellent form. I'm not blind, even the movement is graceful. Trust me, darling, I'm not the only one watching. "

"You're cute, Jem," he says, holding himself over the bar for a solid minute.

"I mean I get Skye's fascination fully, I might have been jealous had you not already had everything needed within me."

"Why reboot something that's already perfect as is."

She pauses, "That's it, Grant! That's it! I could kiss you."

He dropped down by flipping over the rung at the top and on to his feet lightly. "I'm not opposed to that. What'd I do?"

"I need to reboot my brain. If I create an antidote from the stone portal in its liquid form, everything may reverse itself and return my memory!"

She dashes off to locate pen and then stops in front of him. "What?"

"I've nothing to write on. Thank you for the idea, though." She stands on her tip toes and kisses him rather chastely. He doesn't let her drop back on to her feet, instead he pulls her flush to him and kisses her slow and deep.

If she hates him for it later, well, what's one more sin for the list? Because, fuck it, he's missed her and may not have her to himself for much longer.

She kisses back, all hesitancy gone. It's a messy kiss, all tongues and teeth. It becomes a battle for dominance and for once he lets her have control. What starts out hot ends up being soft and gentle. He breaks them apart with a great deal of regret. At some point, she'd wound her arms around his neck and his thigh has slotted into place between her legs.

He backs away and she just follows him, landing a kiss on the corner of his mouth. God help him. "Jem?"

"Yes! Whatever it you're about to say, yes."

He laughs. "I was going to say you had some plan?"

"Oh! Oh of course, whatever my mind forgot, my body clearly recalls," she says distractedly.

He taps her temple. "Yeah, well, I want all of you to recall us, okay?"

"Not fair! You looking like that and then being a gentleman is unfair!" she pouts.

"Thanks, I think! You needed paper?"

"Oh! May I write on you?" She gives him the most dazzling smile and his heart hurts for the things he's bound to lose.

He turns around and gives her his back to write on this is nothing new for him. She wrote the Dendrotoxin formula on his forearm in the middle of a movie once.

She's muttering to herself and he can feel the pen gliding across his back. "Fitz! Bring Bobbi and Coulson please, I have an idea!" Jemma hollers toward the ever watchful cameras above them.

Wait, he knows that smell! "Jemma, you're using a sharpie, aren't you?"

"Possibly."

-/-/-

He doesn't pay too much attention to how things get done. He is too focused on spending his last moments of happiness with Jemma.

=/=

The antidote works on a Friday. He walks out of his post-work out shower to find her sitting primly at the kitchen table with a whole lot of hurt in her eyes.

"I could have forgiven you for lying to me for years and being Hydra, really I could. I could even have forgiven you for trying to kill me by dropping Fitz and I like stones into the ocean, because I know what John Garrett meant you and I know how he molded you. I know all that and I know that pod was meant to float, because I was the one who told you of its multi-purpose design."

"Why try to kill me, then, if not in revenge for my actions?" He tries to make things sound nonchalant as he dries his hair with a towel.

She shrugged. "Retribution for Fitz was part of it, I won't lie, but it was deeper than that."

"Fire away, baby,.I guess I deserve that much." He leans back on the wall, feet crossed, arms crossed over his chest. The cool tile on his bare back grounds him in the moment.

"You clearly do not value your life if you're willing to attempt to end it." She held up her hands. "Do you know how many times over the past eight years you've said you loved my hands? So often that I lost count and it had become part of a vernacular I only associate with you. To me, it was tantamount to a declaration of love, just with different words. Then you endeavor to kill yourself leaving me and my hands to save you without so much as a thank you. Sometimes, in my nightmares I still see your blood beneath my fingernails no matter how long I scrub. Even when I wake up the dream lingers. You will never be forgiven for that."

Her voice is as hard as the stone that got them here but her eyes are filled with tears that are trying to wrench his heart in two.

"Baby, I didn't-"

"Did I say I was finished speaking Ward?" The way she says his last name sends a little chill down his spine in warning. "And I can never absolve you for being unfaithful to me."

He tosses up his hands in disbelief, giving a bitter chuckle. "You threatened to kill me! I thought that pretty much meant we were through, Jem. Excuse the fuck out of me for not reading between the lines of your freaky ass logic, that's what Fitz is for!"

"Oh, fuck you! We both know you're smarter than that."

"What're you saying Jem? You tried to kill me for cheating on you?"

"Yes, I did."

"Jesus Christ, that thing made you crazier than I am." He shakes his head.

"No, it didn't. I tried to kill you before the monolith remember? I'm your wife and you forgot that. You play, you pay." She shrugs. "The only thing the monolith did was provide clarity. It just made me honest. I loved you, hell according to my brain, I still do. You didn't have the decency to maintain your vows but you still have the nerve to wear your ring. You're the worst kind of hypocrite, take it off."

She's not crying now, her anger building up a resolve that scares the life out of him.

"No, I won't do that. I'm sorry baby, Kara-"

"Don't… Let's not pretend like you care. Don't act as if anything we had matters to you."

"If it didn't matter then why'd I drop everything and volunteer to be locked in this box with you? With every single one of those fuckers watching every move we made for three damn months, Jem?"

"Part of your long play?" she offers up.

"I love you, Jemma, more than any one thing on earth, more than any plot I've ever made, more than Garrett, more than vengeance. I love you. Believe it or don't. It won't change how I feel about you."

He dresses and leaves. No one stops him. The smirk on Morse's face makes him itch to end her.

-/-/-

The Von Strucker kid is an entitled little shit and he's spent two months trying to force that out of the kid. He'll get there eventually but he's still a brat so when the kid asks, "Hey can I take a pass at the pretty brunette in your office?" Grant just rolls his eyes.

It's probably the new Executive Assistant he's set to interview today. "When you can shoot the broad side of a barn, maybe."

He goes into his office space, his head down, ensconced in a file.

"Hello, my love."

His head snaps up. He drops the file. She's sitting on the edge of the desk, her legs crossed right over left, insanely high heel hanging off one foot. She leans back onto her hands; it pushes her breasts up and out and hikes her tight fitting short skirt higher on thighs.

She cocks her head at him and pins him with a satisfied look. "Hail Hydra."

And suddenly he knows the designs she drew on his palm in the bath weren't meaningless. If he were concentrating, he would have picked out the Hebrew words she was etching into his palm. "We _are aligned."_

He doesn't know if he should trust his luck, but he'll do it anyway.


End file.
